n******7
发帖数: 5678 | 1 (Alicia Wittmeyer, a Forbes summer intern in China, has been riding the
rails of the country’s train system of late, helping to flesh out
candidates for our upcoming 2011 Forbes China Rich List. She filed these
thoughts about China’s high-speed network after a collision in Zhejiang
Province on Saturday night killed 35 passengers.)
China’s high-speed rail has gotten a lot of bad press from delays and
technical problems. On Saturday, it suffered its worst day yet, after a
horrible accident left nearly three dozen passengers dead. But on Thursday,
at least, when I took the train up from Beijing to Shanghai, there weren’t
any signs that I was riding a particularly controversial train, and most
people on board seemed happy to be there.
My train left Beijing at 7 a.m. and got into Shanghai Hongqiao station just
before 12:30 p.m., with a few stops in between. I sat next to a 20-year-old
student from Nanjing who’d traveled to Beijing for a week. He’d heard
about the problems with the high-speed rail, but didn’t think they were
very serious. He was much more interested in the speed of the train. As we
approached our top speed of just over 310 kph, he snapped a few pictures of
an electronic sign posted in every car that tells you how fast you’re going
. He’d also taken a picture of his ticket before boarding, which was stored
in his camera next to pictures of the Forbidden City, Peking University
West Gate, and other famous tourist attractions.
The train is generally pleasant. It was pretty quiet most of the way, both
in terms of noise from the train itself, and noise from the passengers on
board. It definitely has a different feel to it than many other Chinese
trains: As I walked through the cars to have a look around, I noticed a lot
of laptops and iPads out. There are automatic sliding glass doors between
each car. The canteen car was clean, unlike the canteen cars on some other
Chinese trains I’ve been on. I ordered a gong bao ji ding (“governor’s
chicken”); a foreigner in line behind me tried to order spaghetti, with no
luck, although it sounded like it’s available on some days.
My experience with the high-speed rail was overall, a smooth ride. And the
general reliability of trains in China is extra-attractive. My flight out
of Huangshan, where I’m writing from today, has been cancelled for the
second day in a row. The potential value of a well-functioning high-speed
connection between China’s two most important cities is huge. Let’s hope
that the problems can be worked out so that the rail route can become an
asset instead of a controversy. | b********6
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